How visual reminders can help you to stay consistent with your goals
Having visual reminders of your goals, dreams, and aspirations helps keep you focused on what’s important to you. Throughout life’s daily crises, stresses, and distractions, visual reminders can help you remember the big picture. They can help you overcome challenges and move forward each day toward achieving the life you truly desire.
It’s like this story that I told on my Instagram Stories…
We were walking around the Tuileries Garden and saw the Arc de Triomphe, so we decided that we should walk there since it looked so close. As we were walking towards it, it was always in our line of sight. Except we’ve been walking towards it for about 10 minutes and it still seemed so far away! We were like, “Wow! This is so far, maybe we shouldn’t go anymore.” But instead, we said, “well, we can still see it and we’re already halfway, so we might as well just finish it”. We kept going, and eventually we made it! We were so happy that we stuck with it because it was another bucket list item of ours. If that wasn’t in our line of sight, we might have never walked so far to get to it. So as you can see, keeping your goals within your views, keeping them visual will help you and remind you to constantly keep working and thriving towards them.
Knowing that you’re always moving forward brings a confident, peaceful feeling. You’re sure that, no matter what life brings your way, you will achieve the success you crave. This feeling is an awesome motivator to keep you going even when the chips are down, and visuals can help you get it.
Consistency is one of the most important factors to consider when setting your goals, but this can be hard to achieve if you don’t have enough motivation to carry on with your goal-setting. When it comes to staying motivated and keeping on track, visual reminders are key to helping you stay consistent with your goals—but what exactly does that mean? Here are some tips on how using visuals can help you stay consistent with your goals and keep yourself focused in reaching them.
Try these ways to use visuals as a means of achieving the goals in your life:
Visual reminders of your goals are extremely beneficial in helping you achieve your dreams and aspirations. These reminders are easy to see on a daily basis, helping you recall your most important goals early on and throughout the day. If there are specific goals you want to focus on, visual reminders are a great way to help you achieve them.
Keeping on track requires motivation and persistence—two things that are hard to come by when we’re tired, busy, or stressed. Instead of relying on willpower alone, use visuals. Print out a picture of yourself at your goal weight or create a vision board showing all of your favorite activities. Leave these visual reminders around so that you see them every day and know what it is that you’re working towards. You’ll be more likely to follow through when you have something tangible in front of you.
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1. Post-it note reminders
- This simple method puts your goals and motivators at the forefront. Buy colorful sticky notes and fun colored pens and commit your goals to paper. Stick these notes in the places where they matter most so you can see them and think about them often.
- Place your notes everywhere!
- On your bathroom mirror, your headboard, the refrigerator door, on your favorite coffee mug or right on the bottom of your computer monitor.
- Any place that you’re likely to glance throughout the day is a good destination for a motivating, goal-setting note.
- Make your notes specific
- “I want to eat right this week to lose 2 lbs by the 1st,”
- or broad but motivating, “Today will be a productive and motivating day. You can do it!”
- These sticky notes will encourage productivity throughout the day with simple, basic visuals.
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2. Use Note cards
- Buy a stack of white note cards and commit a goal or aspiration to each one. Decorate them, write notes on them, and otherwise customize them to suit your needs.
- Keep them in your pocket, purse or backpack and refer to them daily as a means of motivating yourself to achieve your goals and dreams.
- When you refer to the same note cards on a daily basis, a habit forms
- It is said that 21 days of repeating a task will ingrain it in you.
- Check your note cards daily until it becomes a habit, and it will become a vital tool in helping you achieve your goals.
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3. Visual mind maps or Vision boards
- This tool will help you organize your goals in a highly visual way.
- Create a mind map on a large sheet of poster board.
- Designate an area for each long-term goal, and add an image and a small amount of text.
- Create a cloud of medium and long-term goals around each long-term goal, with lines connecting them to the long-term focus.• Use images, colors, words, and other meaningful visuals to decorate your poster.
- Draw your own graphics, clip pictures from magazines, or download images from the internet to create a colorful – and visually appealing – goal-oriented mind map.
- Put time and effort into the creation of your visual mind map, and then put it in a place where you’ll see it daily.
- This visual will help you keep your short, medium, and long term goals in mind and will consistently remind you of what you want to be focusing on.
- 4. Wall Calendars
- This tool will help you stay organized and remind you of what you’re working towards.
- This can be a monthly, weekly or even a blank wall calendar.
- You can use it to mark each day that you’re working on your goals or just to see how much time you have left
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5. Motivational Posters
- Motivational posters are great tools for helping yourself create consistency in all areas of life. Instead of posting a big picture of that gorgeous beachfront villa you want to buy one day, put up pictures and quotes relating specifically to your goals.
- For example, if one of my personal New Year’s resolutions is getting in shape and eating healthier food, I might post a few images that remind me that by sticking with my program every day (and week), I will eventually be able to run six miles at once instead of walking two miles three times per week as I do now.
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6. Reminders from Friends and Family
- Asking friends and family for reminders is a great way to keep yourself on track. You might want a friend or family member to check in with you daily, weekly, or monthly.
- You could also ask them to take note of times when they think you’re faltering and guide you back onto track.
- The key here is just making sure they’re checking in on you often enough!
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7. Use Your Smartphone
- There are many ways to remind yourself of your objectives throughout the day, but it’s always a good idea to rely on something that’s mobile and easily accessible.
- We often reach for our phones as soon as we wake up in order to check our email, so why not use it to keep ourselves on track?
- Set a calendar alert or download an app that sends you goal-related messages at key times during your day.
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8. Apps That Can Help
- A goal without a plan is just a wish. One way to make sure your New Year’s resolutions stick, or any of your personal goals, is to have some kind of reminder on hand. There are tons of apps out there that will nudge you when it’s time for action.
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9. Podcasts and Audiobooks
- If listening is a more comfortable medium for you, consider adding some podcasts or audiobooks to your routine.
- Podcasts are especially nice because they’re portable and don’t require any set time commitment—you can listen while doing something else, like walking on a treadmill or commuting on public transit.
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10. Stay Consistent With Your Goals with a Planner! (Free Bonus Goal & Habit Tracker!)
- Planners are a great physical way to stay consistent with your goals. You can use it to break down your goals and track your habits.
Download your free Goal and Habit trackers here:
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US LETTER – 12-Week-Goal-Tracker-Planner
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A5 – 12-Week-Goal-Tracker-Planner-A5
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PERSONAL – 12-Week-Goal-Tracker-Planner-PERSONAL
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POCKET – 12-Week-Goal-Tracker-Planner-POCKET
